


Haunt

by Dark Stars (ivorybyrd)



Category: Tenkuu no Escaflowne | The Vision of Escaflowne
Genre: Body Decomposition, Dreams, Hallucinations, M/M, Spoilers, breakdowns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-28 12:50:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,045
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13904376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivorybyrd/pseuds/Dark%20Stars
Summary: On the eve of war, Dilandau is suffering from an inescapable dream.





	Haunt

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tnseukkoi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tnseukkoi/gifts).



> This was a prompt for SewingYoukai/Tnseukkoi for the quote "You're bleeding all over my carpet."

Dilandau hated the sounds of nature drilling their way through the thin canvas of his tent walls. He missed the machine quiet of the capital, and the rumbling walls and hiss of steam of a floating fortress. 

Camping was more than beneath him. But he wasn’t going to complain, he had objectives, vendettas against that man, Van. Only no longer did it burn in his brain until he would pass out to dream of the man’s blood spilled.

A field of flowers. Long sprawling softness that reached to a glittering seaside. The heat of a summer evening. It was all nice. It was all calming. There he could forget war, he could forget pain and fear for even just a little while. 

But then it would burn. No matter how much his brain tried to twist the dream to make it go out, it burned faster, brighter and hotter. The source of the fire was always in the shape of him. Some things don’t deserve to be burned, including himself. So even as the fire surrounded him, he screamed and begged for himself to stop holding the torch to the delicate flowers and tall grass.

He woke with ragged breath, and a pain in his chest that made him whimper out. He knocked over a glass at his bedside to the tent carpet below. He reached then for Jajuka, sleeping silently five or six feet away in a chair he was forced into. His own tent was too far away from Dilandau. 

Warmth filled his hand, and the pain ceased. 

“Ga.. ti…” Dilandau moaned, his blurred vision could barely make out his face, but the strong hands and the bright eyes were all he needed. He could be blind and would know each of their breaths, the footfalls, and their laughs. 

He held the hand tightly in his own, hearing the drips from the water at his bedside. “You’re bleeding… all over my carpet,” his lips whispered. Why should he say such a thing? Gatti was there, the last days were worth all the pain, loneliness, and confusion.”

He said nothing, but Dilandau could feel the pressure as Gatti sat on the bed next to him. 

“What took you… so long?” He scolded and sniffled. The thought of his subordinate brought the scent of blood and burning to his nose. “No…” A wave of nausea traveled up his stomach and into his throat. 

The closer Gatti came to him, bending over his form in the bed, the more that nausea came with the realization. His vision cleared just enough as Gatti’s mouth passed by his cheek to his ear. 

“Let go,” he said. His voice was unmarred by the central split from his head to his stomach.

Dilandau’s eyes could only see the alseides unit being split it half at the time, but knowing that this was what the other’s death had been sent him over. His hands reached to push the cadaver off of him, but only sank between the divide of his chest. 

“It’s time, you have to let go.” His voice was too clear, and too resound but Dilandau couldn’t speak to retaliate. 

He felt himself being peeled away from the top layer of his own skin. 

‘No… not yet!’ Dilandau screamed in his own mind. His memories flashed to the Sorcerers and the cool metal forced under his skin. The tiny pinprick to the tearing of his muscles destroyed the memories and the emotions tied to them. 

Because of that, he couldn’t remember their laughs, and the familiar strides across metal floors. This haunting hallucination had brought it all back, but at a cost. 

“Let go.” 

His eyes filled, but all he could see was a blur of red. He was fighting tooth and nail to stay like this just a little while longer. 

Gatti above him froze, his face grew solemn as bits and pieces of his edges decomposed. His eyes sunk inward, and the last of his gaze told Dilandau he was waiting.

Dilandau watched the process of Gatti’s last moments as a corpse being taken over by scavenger bugs and flowers. His hands slipped from Gatti’s open chest, the body crumbling onto the blankets between them. All he could do is silently wish to scream. 

 

Something strong grabbed his shoulder, and the image fell away from his eyes.

“Lord Dilandau!?” Jajuka’s golden eyes showed more than alarm, but concern. “Ce-“ 

Dilandau’s attention finally snapped into place, no longer was he just floating outside his own mind. He stared at Jajuka for a moment before screaming out and scrambling out of his bed. “Who… who are….” He stopped as more and more memories came back. 

“Lord Dilandau, are you ok?” He asked. 

The long hair, the kind eyes. “Jajuka… yes…” His hand went to his splitting head, and the image of Gatti flashed behind his eyelids. 

“I will fetch you some more water,” Jajuka whispered. 

“NOW!” Dilandau snapped. His voice whined, urging the beast man to hurry outside so he could break down in peace. 

Jajuka was beyond the curtains of his tent when Dilandau crumbled forward in his bed. He grasped tightly at the sheets, trying to rip them apart but found it only angered the muscles in his arms and fingers. He knew he wasn’t everything he was raised to believe. Waking up in the graveyard, Jajuka, the lapse of memories that didn’t belong to him but felt like he was in a mirror. Only he was on the wrong side. 

For a moment, only a small one, Dilandau blamed himself. But the well of nausea came and suddenly the feeling of hatred came again like he’d been dosed. 

No, this was Van’s fault, and the woman’s. She called down that pillar of light that changed him, that unlocked something he never wanted to go back to. He brought the witch from the Mystic Moon who could see through his men’s cloaks and taught Van to see through them as well. 

When he killed Van, he would find her and kill her too. Then as the world spun into chaos, he would exact his next revenge on Folken, and the rest of the sorcerers for making him forget. 

“Let go,” Gatti’s voice echoed. 

“Not yet,” he answered.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


End file.
